Pests affect a wide variety of wooden bodies ranging from household furniture to tree plantations. It is difficult to detect and remove or kill the pests residing inside the wooden bodies to prevent them from causing damage to the wooden bodies. This is because the infestation usually begins in a small region inside the wooden body. In this stage, the pests are relatively small and usually in a larva form. The size of the wooden bodies also poses a difficulty in detecting the infestation.
There are certain methods for detecting infestation inside wooden bodies. These methods include, but are not limited to, acoustic detection, electromagnetic detection and optical detection. These methods only assist in finding where the infestation is in the wooden bodies. There are a limited number of methods for treating the infestation within the wooden bodies.
One of most commonly used method for treating infestation inside wooden bodies is to burn down the wooden bodies affected by the infestation. This is particularly applicable for preventing the spread of pests in tree plantations. Other methods for treating infestation inside wooden bodies include use of ultrasound and microwave. The methods which use ultrasound do not use electronic focusing. Further, such methods attempt to treat infestation by raising the temperature of the entire wooden body. In such methods, the treatment is generally effective only in the regions nearest to the probes. The use of ultrasound signals in such a manner is generally not effective in treating infestation in wooden bodies. Further, such arbitrary application of temperature may be harmful to wooden bodies such as trees. The methods which use microwave radiation for treating infestation also have limitations. Firstly, the temperature of treatment drops rapidly with distance. Further, the application of microwave usually causes the surface of the wooden bodies to burn due to the high power applied on the surface. In addition, these methods do not focus the microwave radiation to specific regions within the wooden bodies.
In view of the above, there is a need for an improved apparatus and method for treating infestation in a wooden body.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the invention.